Lorraine
Rudowski has worn a number of hats throughout her life: sister, daughter,
mother, nurse, wife, professor and grandmother.
This woman, my grandmother, taught me everything I needed to know in
life. Everything from when to keep my mouth
shut to how to tell someone, only when necessary of course, to “fuck off”
politely. She is a woman of integrity
and has more drive than anyone I have ever met.
I decided to interview my grandmother because I knew that she had a
variety of experiences in her lifetime, especially being the wife of a man in
the Foreign Service and traveling for much of her adult life. Due to her recent development of Alzheimer’s
disease my family asked me if “I really thought she was the right person to
interview.” To this I responded with a
wholehearted yes. The interview was a
little rockier than I had hoped and some of her information (dates, locations,
etc.) was shaky but my grandmother, as she has always done, gave me her best.
She
was born in 1929 and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She grew up with her mother, father and two sisters. When asking my first couple of questions
about gender expectations in the household she told me that she was expected to
follow the rules, all the rules, there were no exceptions. Because there were no boys in her family I
asked her about being a girl in her community, and what that meant at that
time. She told me that she and the other
girls received a lot of respect from the boys in her area, not like today where
you see all this hoopla about harassment and such. I asked her about her first job, and whether
she was paid or not. She explained that
she had a wonderful singing voice (in the most modest way one can say that about
themselves) and that because of this she had a radio show on Sunday evenings
where she would sing with another young man.
She was paid minimal for this work but she believes that was a product
of the times and not because she was a woman.
After she graduated from high school she moved to Connecticut to live
with her aunt and uncle, she was 18 at the time. She started working at a bank and was paid
for the work she did there. I asked if
there were men working at this bank as well, trying to get a feel for whether
or not this was a typical job for a woman to do, but she informed me that there
were in fact men working there as well.
When
I brought up the issue of gender bias in the work place she told me that she
did not experience any of that, she said the environment in which she worked
was pleasant. So I followed that with a
question asking her if she believed there is a difference in being a woman in
the workforce today as opposed to when she was working. She explained that she believed there was
definitely a bigger difference for women today and that she thinks men in this
time period are more aware that women are fully capable of replacing them at
work, this she stated “is not a happy feeling I’m sure.” My grandmother continued to say that some
women are probably content with the under representation of their gender in the
workforce, however there are definitely women who are very aware of it and very
unhappy about it.
The
next couple of questions I asked were about her family life, for example when
she got married. My grandmother was
married at the age of 18. I asked her
why she chose to get married that young in which she responded that my
grandfather’s mother was very intent on them being together. She told me “she [my grandfather’s mother]
really picked me out, in fact I was living with my aunt and she said you are to
come and live with me.” She had her
first child at the age of 19; I quickly asked her if having children this early
was something women did during that time.
I say quickly because my grandmother has a tendency to go on a
completely different tangent when talking about her children, this I know from
asking questions about her life prior to this interview. She told me yes, that women typically had
children at a young age because they didn’t normally attend college like they
do today. She told me that she had gone
to college for a small period of time in Hartford, Connecticut and that even
though a lot of her classmates were men, it was a coeducational school so there
were also women, but a limited number.
I
wanted to know if she raised her children with gender expectations in
mind. Her response was pretty
straightforward, “you always do that, you expect boys to be stronger and more
willing to help, and you expect girls to follow the line of the mother and help
you around the house and in schooling, you expected her to look for female
potential for a job in other words you wouldn’t pick up a hammer or
shovel.” This was interesting to hear
though, because of what I know about the childhood of my aunts and uncles prior
to this interview. She may have thought
she was raising her children with gender expectations but because my
grandfather was normally at work or traveling because of his job my uncles did
help around the house. My uncles have
told me many times before that they all know how to sew. This is because when
they were living in Africa, shopping malls weren’t really at their disposal so
they had to sew their own clothes. My
mom and aunt, the only girls in the five children my grandmother had, didn’t
really do any heavy lifting, so maybe that is what she was referring to, but
the boys definitely took part in chores on both ends of the gender spectrum.
I
wanted to know what it was like for her during World War II and Vietnam. She told me that her personal experience
during WWII as a woman was not really any different because of her gender. However, with Vietnam, she did feel that
being a woman contributed to some of the things she dealt with. A major aspect of this was being married to a
man in the army. She said that her and
the other wives always had a feeling that their husband would be called
next. I’m sure the men also had the same
feelings but it was the women who would be home with the children while their
life partner was somewhere in a war zone.
She did mention that because my grandfather was older at this time he
was not involved in any combat but was called to go after the war. When I asked her about being a woman during
the civil rights movement she at first told me that she wasn’t in the same area
as that was going on, that she was in Washington (one of the shakier parts of
the interview). She followed this,
however, by saying “it was difficult for them [the women] to accept it. Number one they wanted it [civil rights] but
how to work it in responsibility with men was very difficult for women at that
period of time. Some of them [the women]
were extremely arrogant and that made it difficult for them and some of them
were extremely, not weak, but not wanting to stand up and say look I’m a woman,
I can do what you do, a lot of women that did that didn’t get a good response
from it.”
Towards
the end of the interview I started to notice that she was getting a little bit
tired and wanted to try and wrap it up and ask her about her thoughts of
younger women today. My grandmother
believes that younger women today have a much better opportunity than they did
at her age. She noted that this is
especially true with continuing on in school, that didn’t really happen in her
time. When I asked her about the
difference in expectations she said that women in her time were expected to do
the cooking and the cleaning and the rearing of the children, as opposed to
today, where women are expected to find jobs and get babysitters. I asked her what she thought about the hopes
and dreams of women today and she said that we should try and immerse ourselves
in politics and change what we want to be changed. Confused, I asked her if she thought all the
younger women of today have these hopes and dreams and she said no, so I went
on to ask if she believed that was a bad thing.
This is where the interview ended, her answer to my last question was
“no, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I think people with special attitudes and
[people] that haven’t been raised in that way [to want to get involved] then they
wouldn’t be looking at that [getting into politics] but you can’t stand
still…your generation, you’re not supposed to stand still.”
The
interview overall went better than I had expected. I wish my grandmother would have gone deeper
into her life a little bit more, but I made the decision not to push too
hard. I believe that in her younger
years my grandmother wasn’t really aware of how gender differences play such a
large role in society, but I think she realizes it more now. I think she believes that she raised her
children with gender expectations but at the same time didn’t realize that she
was also pushing the boundaries with them.
In the end, I was incredibly glad that I got to interview my grandmother
on this topic because her answers were definitely different than I would have
expected. I expected more feminist
answers than the ones she provided because that is how I have pictured her, but
I think that is important. Like the
Ted Talk we watched on having one story of people. You may think one way about a person but
after getting to know them in a different way, such as interviewing, you get to
witness a whole other side.
- Tayler D'Alelio
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